Everybody Loves Hugo/Theories
Hurley's Visitors *Hurley can only talk to people who have not "moved on". People such as Michael, Charlie, etc. have not "moved on" due to their killing. Richard's wife may have failed to "move on" for another reason. **Miles can only talk to people who are moving on. ***And yet Miles was able to talk to Jacob ("He was standing over Jacob's body with a bloody dagger, so... yeah, I'm pretty sure."), even though Jacob appeared to Hurley numerous times after his death. *A reason for spirits not moving on is the Island is not done with them. *It seems that there may be some difference between the spirits viiting Hurley on the Island and the ones visiting him off the Island. Michael's spirit said he was stuck on the Island because of what he had done. He could not move on because he still hadn't gotten over his murders and the falling out between him and Walt. Charlie, Eko, and Ana Lucia all visited Hurley off the Island, which means they may have moved on and their spirits could leave the Island. Charlie sacraficed himself for all of his friends, Eko stop blaming himself for his brother's death and realized he was doing what he had to, and Ana Lucia was finally accepted by everyone and refused to kill Ben. Richard's wife may have felt that Richard killing the doctor may have been her fault, which is why she can't move on. They all still have a purpose for the Island which is why they can still appear on Earth, but the ones who haven't moved on emotionally can not move on from the Island. Dead People who Reappear Are MiB *Dave was actually MIB trying to get Hurley to commit suicide because he knows how important Hurley is to Jacob. *Jacob and Isabella are incarnations of MiB. MiB is capable of assuming the forms of dead people. He assumed the form of Ben's island adopted dead daughter to manipulate Ben into following MiB. He assumed the form of Jack's dead father to manipulate Locke and Ben into moving the island and establishing the conditions which would make his plan work. And he assumed the form of dead Jacob to manipulate Hurley into doing things which served MiB's interests. And the most impressive incarnation is assuming the form of Michael to convince Hurley to stop Ilana from destroying the plane and then to lead all of the remaining candidates to MiB's camp. (However Ilana said that MIB can no longer change his face. So Hurley's visions must be actual visions of the dead, if she is to be believed.) :*They confirmed that he was Yemi, Alex, etc., but they would never confirm that MIB was Christian Shepard, in fact they strongly suggested that it wasn't. They are made to appear by the MiB *When they appear they seem to be serving the needs of the MiB, and while it's clearly not the same entity as is currently present in a Locke-shaped body, the MiB can manifest itself as dead people in order to encourage people to do what he wants them to i.e. getting the other candidates to join him. *The MiB has said that all he needs in order to get off the island is the other candidates, and yet he (as Locke) is not particularly active in pursuing them - he is 'waiting for them' calmly, as if he knows they are on their way. *He didn't seem particularly surprised to see Hurley pop out of the bushes at that particular moment. *He knows that he has no influence over them as False Locke and therefore has to resort to incarnations of people relevant to the person he wishes to persuade. The Whispers *Michael is lying about the whispers. **3 instances of whispers are followed by a sighting of never-been-dead Walt and his backward words of warning. Appearances after whispers are manipulations toward certain actions and outcomes. (An opposing force caused Walt's messages to translate backwards and uninterpreted--'don't push the button, the button's bad' and 'they're coming and they're close'.) #In Season 2, whispers are heard: a) right before Cindy is secretly taken by the Others. (The Other 48 Days); b) right before Jack, Kate, Michael, Hurley, Sawyer (darted) are surprised by the Others (Live Together, Die Alone, Part 2). ***It was confirmed by the producers in their most recent podcast that the Whispers are what Michael said they are. **Whispers are a distraction preceding manipulative words. That's why Ben told Rousseau: "if you want your child to live, every time you hear whispers, you run the other way." (Season 5, Dead Is Dead) Rousseau survived the Others for many years following this advice. *The Whispers are as Michael said - dead people who can't move on **The whispers have an agenda unrelated to Jacob's or MiB's. The agenda of the whispers falls in line with the desires of the people who's spirits are whispering. They precede attacks from the others and from Smokey in any form, so they are just trying to protect people. This holds with Ben telling Rousseau to run the other way when she hears whispers. If Ben had no real desire to bring Rousseau any harm, telling her to use the whispers as an alarm was pretty sound advice, even if it was (in Ben's eyes) just to prevent her getting caught by the Others. **The whispers show themselves only in times of trouble. They are not associated with Others, MiB, or higher power even. They watch, and when something big is going down, their 'talking' becomes more intense and it gets louder, to the point where the audience and characters can hear them. Therefore, the whispers are tied to events that happen, not factions/people. The reason they appear so often with the Others is because for a lot of the time, the Others were committing kidnappings, deceptions, raids and so forth, which would have invited a lot of talk among the witnessing whispering ghosts. **The Whisper transcripts need updating for later episodes, but the ones that exist can seem to indicate "ghosts" who both watch the action of the Losties but also attempt to manipulate the action in some undisclosed way. ***Examples, during the whisper sequence with Charlie on the beach, the following statements were made: "Grab it right now", "I know I've had it", "Let's get him moving", "Are you confused or something ?" (sped up), "He's just leaving him " (reversed), "We can all raise this baby " ***Death (and love) are "Doors" in the Lostverse. Some people get stuck on the other side of the door without moving on. When Ilana dies, she will "wake up" surrounded by a myriad of ghosts and will work with them for whatever their endgame is. *The Whispers are connected to the Others **Typically, the whispers are heard before The Others make an appearance. **Many of the ghosts would be dead others, and they would want to help or warn the living others. **Whispers appear before the Smoke Monster arrives. The Whispers have been traditionally followed by the "tick tick" sound and black smoke - hence the ghosts providing a warning to those in danger. Knowing that alive inhabitants might be a little perturbed by the sound, this is a pretty good warning; and the alerted islanders run for cover. This is also indicated by Danielle Rousseau "when you hear the whispers run) **At the beginning of Season 6 when Kate/Jack/Hurley/etc... are in the tunnels leading to the temple, whispers are heard before The Others kidnap them. *The Whispers/Ghosts are connected to the FST Characters **No one who is a 'Ghost' has made an appearance in the FST thus far. **Michael is the first original passenger of Oceanic 815 to appear as a 'ghost' on the island (Walt and Christian Shepherd excluded). **Michael asked Hurley to apologize to Libby if he saw her. This suggests that Michael cannot see/find Libby and this could be explained by two possibilities: (a)That her spirit has 'moved on' or (B)Her 'spirit' has left the OT altogether to join FST Libby's consciousness. **FST Libby's memory of the OT was triggered easily by seeing Hurley in a commercial. This is much less extreme than what other characters have had to go through to obtain their OT memories (see: Charlie's and Desmond's near-death epiphanies). **Taking the Libby example further, those who have died in the OT (who are not 'ghosts') have had their consciousness merged with their respective FST mind. This is why their memories of the OT are much easier to obtain. For example, FST Daniel Faraday simply looked at Charlotte and had an OT-related memory. *Incongruities with the Whispers **In the first season, there is a boar that is taunting Sawyer, and it's accompanied by whispers saying "it'll come back around," which are the last words of the man Sawyer killed, leading Sawyer to believe that the boar is the ghost of the man he killed. Lost's explanations of the whispers make sense for that episode, but it is unclear why that man's spirit would end up on the island. **Walt was whispering to Shannon in Man of Science, Man of Faith and Abandoned and both Shannon and Sayid also in the same episode but Walt clearly got off the island and wasn't stuck on the island so how was he one of the people who could whisper if he was able to leave the island. **Walt is "special," and that is why he was able to appear as if he was a ghost. **Walt projects his image into other people's minds. Walt's ability had emphasis in the creative mind, meaning he can project what he can think of. So, he reads about polar bears, and you get one. He reads and thinks about birds, you get them flocking in. He even tries to visualize him throwing the knife with Locke before he successfully nails the throw. The End of the Timeline Fracture Theory For the past three or four episodes, The entire Time Fracture Theory has been looking increasingly untenable. This week's episode appeared to have put the final nails in the coffin: #The appearance of FS Pierre Chang, presenting an award to Hugo, would seen to show pretty conclusively that if FS Chang had been in Dharma 1974-1977 and the events of the time travelling losties had occurred, he would not have been so calm about presenting Hugo with an award, when Hugo appears the same age as the last time he would have seen him. He also has two good arms; inconsistent with what we have seen in the Jughead 1977 Incident. #The fact that Hugo is so famous, would mean that anyone who had been in Dharma 1977, if the time travelling losties had been there, would have recognised Hugo #The fact that many FST characters are now 'remembering' events from the OT, which, if the timelines were running in parallel, would not yet have occurred (eg Hurley's date with Libby did not occur until almost 2 months after 22nd Sept - the tailies did not meet the midsectioners until 48 days after the crash). All of this runs entirely counter to a time fracture theory, and in order to maintain it, those proponents who still believe it, would have to come up with some really convoluted explanations to deal with all these issues. In particular, (1) & (2) appear to kill off completely any Jughead 'split the timelines' notion, and (3) would appear to need an explanation of why time would be running at different rates in the two branches of the timeline.